Healthy Eating

The more I look into reducing our Carbon footprint/ growing our own food and the like, the more I come across particular ways of eating… I started changing a lot of what our family eats at the beginning of the year when I started seeing a nutritionist to reach my goal weight again – getting there!

But I’m intrigued by the movements to give up sugar, give up wheat and paleo eating. I’m on my way to giving up sugar, I’ve got some stevia to see how that works in baking. I’m more and more intrigued by paleo eating and need to do some more reading on that…

Has anyone else given up sugar/ wheat or follow a paleo diet? I’d love to know your thoughts/ experiences – particularly in finding workable alternatives when in public/ with friends as that is the biggest difficulty I’ve found.

18 comments to 'Healthy Eating'

Glad you googled it @Anna21 it is pretty interesting. I certainly have a lot more to learn about it, but people who eat that way love it. Though often they have a Thermomix to make it easier… I’d love a Thermomix, but have to work out where the money is coming from first as they’re far from cheap!!!

Oh wow. I’d never heard of a thermomix either but I’ve just checked it out and it looks pretty fantastic. I’m completely torn between wanting to know more and wishing I’d never known of its existence (given the price!) I’ve don’t have many appliances at all and have been thinking of investing in a multi-appliance like a kitchenaid or one of those juicers that also make pasta and nut-butter and ice-cream… and now there’s the thermomix. I think I need to sit down and work out which functions I will use most and find the single appliance which ticks the most boxes!

I’m now in my third week of sugar-free eating! So I can’t speak from much experience! I’m planning to do 2 months before starting to eat occasional sugar again (especially fruit) Its kind of a personal experiment to see if it makes me feel better but also because I am uncomfortable about my chocolate addiction! It hasn’t been too big a shift for me though as I don’t eat much processed food or sweet stuff (except chocolate).

As I eat a vegetarian diet I have had to deal with the eating out issues for a while. I still find it challenging when I am served meat as a guest – and I do sometimes eat it if it will offend not to. Best advice is to make sure people know in advance wherever possible and be prepared to self cater.

I’ve heard of paleo eating and although the basic premise makes sense to me I could never imagine eating this way – it seems too meat focused for me but maybe I don’t know enough about it – is it possible to be a paleo vegetarian?!

Nice @Pod are you following Sarah Wilson’s I Quit Sugar 8 week program? I’m not completely there in terms of giving up sugar, I need time and head space to be across all the alternatives and also time to get the leftover sugary/ processed foods out of our pantry (though it’s a slow process as I’m reluctant to use them nowadays!)

Yea, I haven’t read a huge amount on Paleo, but the general ideas make sense to me. No idea about whether there is a vegetarian version. Probably the next thing I’m going to remove from my diet (after sugar) is wheat… that is supposed to make all kinds of difference to health/ weight/ etc. I’ve recently come across ‘Wheat Belly’ and I’m intrigued and as Paleo also steers away from wheat it could just be another step on my journey.

With a toddler I’m all about making changes gradually in order to be true habit changes and make them sustainable in our family life!

@Pod Yes, the sugar being rare in paleo diet thing makes a lot of sense to me too! Did you read the article by the NY Times reporter that Sarah cites in her book? I was so super intrigued and disturbed by the research he’s done over the last decade and while I accept that it’s not ‘conclusive’ it leaves a few too many worrying possibilities for me to just ignore it!!!

I’ll update from time to time as we do embark on new changes/ hopefully reap the benefits!

Do keep us updated on how you go with quitting sugar! Stay strong, it’s totally worth it!!! Hopefully we’ll meet at a workshop at CEC sometime soon.

@Taryn Thanks! And yes I’ll say hello when I recognise you at a workshop.
She was right about the naysayers -people seem to understand no added sugar but not no sugar AT ALL and try to convince me to eat fruit. I will eat fruit again (I dont think its evil) but I’m not eating it for these 2 months!

@Taryn I gave up wheat and other gluten products about three months ago as I have IBS. The IBS improved slightly but the best thing has been the improvement in my overall health – not a cold or flu in that time at all!

@Taryn Sounds fascinating. My vegetarian daughter has been on a very low sugar, no processed food diet. She has not only lost weight but has reduced her migraine attacks.
You only have to look at what has happened to the Aborigines. They have gone from hunter gatherers ie paleo diet to trying to cope with a western diet with huge consequences. They have a low life expectancy and high incidence of diabetes and heart disease. In their original way of life they were in harmony with nature. Perhaps they have something to teach us.